China's "Dam Street" won the best movie award in this year's Asian Film
Festival at the French seaside resort of Deauville yesterday.The movie,
which won the Lotus D'Or (Golden Lotus) prize, was directed by 33-year-old Li
Yu, the only woman director taking part in the event.The film focus on the
life of a young Chinese woman who fell pregnant as a high school student in a
small, conservative Chinese town in the early 1980s.After giving birth, the
heroine in the film was told that her baby did not survive. She met her son ten
years later, but neither were aware of their special relationship till they
finally found the truth at the end of the film."Dam Street" is Li's second
feature film and has already been shown at a number of other major cinema events
including Austria's Biennale and the Toronto and Rotterdam film
festivals.Earlier, it also won the award for best original screenplay in a
film festival in Busan, South Korea.Li, a well-known television presenter in
China before becoming a director, was not present in Deauville to receive her
award, but French actor and director Jacques Weber, who headed the festival
jury, accepted it on her behalf.Another contender for the Lotus d'Or was
"The Peter Pan Formula", a directorial debut by 33-year-old South Korean
director Cho Chang Ho, which was finally awarded this year's Jury Prize.The
"Action Asia" prize for the best action film shown at this year's festival went
to "Bittersweet Life" by another South Korean director, 42-year-old Kim
Jee-Woon.This year's Critics Prize in Deauville went to Thai director Wisit
Sasantieng, for his off-beat love story "Citizen Dog."Another Thai director,
Kongdej Jaturanrasmee, won the prize for the best screenplay for "Midnight My
Love", the tale of a Bangkok taxi driver who falls in love with a beautiful
prostitute.Earlier on Wednesday, at the opening ceremony of the festival,
the festival paid tribute to Chinese director Chen Kaige, who was in Deauville
for the screening of his latest feature "The Promise", which was also the
opening film of the festival.The Asian Film Festival in Deauville is one of
the biggest Asian film festivals in Europe.